Hwoof said:
They could've done so much more with the whole premise of the clone wars, and the whole "empire taking over" situation, but it just turned out to be... unnecessarily comical I guess.
And the empire is formed because
"OH NO I GOT ATTACKED BY JEDI, LETS BECOME A DICTATORSHIP. FOR SAFETY OF COURSE"
Seriously. What the hell is with that?
Honestly, that was one of the biggest things that the prequel trilogy even had going for it. Remember that the power to do such a thing had been given to him in the second movie, so it was completely plausible that such a thing could happen. It's also a parallel to societies in the world. Such a thing has happened before many a time, and can just as easily happen again in our modern age. The prequels were filled with a lot of childish trash, but this was one scene in particular that was actually really good and quite relevant.
Now on to the rest of the topic at hand... yeah, the prequel trilogy is pretty bad. The Phantom Menace is a soulless piece of delicious eye candy wrapped in a premise that tried to be political, but then made the politics of the issue have no bearing on the plot. It also essentially had ZERO FUCKING STORY. Seriously, this movie was completely pointless. The recap in the elevator of the second movie pretty much told us everything we needed to know about Obi-Wan and Anakin's relationship, and with that, we could have had another movie to develop those two as characters, the political overthrow of a democratic government, and Anakin and Padme's descent into darkness. This movie talked a lot, but didn't say a word.
Episode 2 was better than Phantom, but still had a lot of issues. The reason I hate this one so much though is because of the incredible missed opportunities here. There was some real mystery going on, only they shrouded it in special effects, throwaway one-liners, and a horrifying romantic sub-plot. Fortunately though, some of the action actually serves the plot, and that instantly makes this a better movie than the first.
Episode 3... wow. The essential need to make the second movie come first really shows with how rushed this movie feels. Somehow they ran out of time in turning Anakin into a monster and turning the entire world against the Jedi. I can understand flipping a switch and instituting military order because of an assassination attempt, but flipping a switch and turning a powerful Jedi with a mediocre track record as far as maturity goes into a child slaying abomination is way too extreme. Had more care been given to it all, this could have been much better. The fights are all great, but it's hard to care because of the lack of development. Why do I care about the glorious battle in space? Why do I care about the need to assassinate Grevious? And worst of all, why do I care that the spontaneous child killer is fighting his master? There was no development leading up to any of this! It's too damned sudden!
Now this isn't to say that the original trilogy is perfect, it's far from that. However it is very effective in its effects, they all serve the story, and the story isn't convoluted from one title to the next. We know a lot happened between Episode 5 and Episode 6, but it doesn't suddenly detach us from the story like it does between 2 and 3.
When I was younger I really liked the prequels, but as I get older I feel more like Yahtzee after Tim Schafer ate one of his lion cubs.
